Bridging Art and Science: How can a Sculpture Impact Walkability?

Bright Ecologies installed in the lobby of the Tisch Library on the campus of Tufts University in 2022. Photo by Jared Charney.

By PATTE LOPER, MARY ELLEN STROM, JUSTIN B. HOLLANDER, and ALYSSA EAKMAN September 21, 2024

“I’m not sure people will see this from the sidewalk” Dina Deitsch, chief curator for Tufts University Art Galleries had her doubts from the first. Standing on the small lawn of the 1900’s Colonial that serves as headquarters for Tufts Urban and Environmental Planning Department, Deitsch surveyed the installation of an experimental public artwork: Bright Ecologies. She wondered if it would fulfill its goals: transform over time and have viewer’s responses tracked by scientists. To do that, Bright Ecologies needed to attract the attention of passersby. The work, which was created by artists Patte Loper and Mary Ellen Strom, began life as an austere black pyramid, slowly morphing over time into a more complex object with a mirrored interior, complete with native and edible plants. It was brought into existence so that an urban planning team led by Justin Hollander along with engineers Rob Jacob and Eric Miller could track viewer response to better understand how public art affects behavior, well-being, and urban walkability. As it turned out, Deitsch was correct, the site, selected mostly for ease of camera surveillance from the interior of the house, was too far back from the sidewalk, and when the scientists’ tracking devices noticed little change in pedestrian behavior in response to the artwork, the team moved the work closer to the sidewalk. This elicited a little more engagement, including a small group of people who created an unusual curve in the algorithm by gathering around the work before breaking off and smelling leaves from the artwork’s plants. Ultimately, the scientists’ findings showed the impact of the artwork was minimal. Upon review, it was decided that the artwork, which had dark coloration and held plants, was too like the dark shrubbery along the side of the house that visually framed the work. “Next time let’s paint it orange,” laughed the artists.

The Tufts NeuroArt Lab is a collaboration between teams from Urban and Environmental Planning, the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, and the Engineering School. The NeuroArt Lab’s core assumption is that art impacts people. We all know that, but how exactly? Can we measure the human response to art and if so, what do those responses mean?

Scientists have been exploring these questions for more than a century, from Yrjii Hirn’s 1901 book “The Origins of Art; a Psychological and Social Inquiry,” which delves into the instinctive, sexual, and status-seeking aspects of art, to studies asking people whether the colors on an artwork are too bright, or the texture pleases them, or even if the aura it gives off is unsettling, to studies such as “Beyond public artopia: public art as perceived by its publics,” a study that asks public art viewers in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Antwerp and Ghent what they think of specific artworks, with mixed results. These self-reported opinions, however, are only one piece of the puzzle when we consider the intersection of art and impressions.

Regardless of media – paintings, film, music, writing, and more – art can have an enormous influence on the viewer’s wellbeing, quality of life, and overall psychology. The Tufts NeuroArt Lab was interested in public artworks in particular because they hold a very specific relationship with the viewer. Unlike museum exhibitions and cinemas, the average person doesn’t observe public art by intentionally seeking it out. Rather, it may occupy a more subtle role in a person’s day, whether it’s a recurring presence in the daily routine of a commuter or a singular encounter with a tourist. Though the ripples it sets into motion might not be dramatic, even brief experiences can leave an impression on viewers.

Bright Ecologies installed in the lobby of the Tisch Library on the campus of Tufts University in 2022. Photo by Jared Charney.

This project is interdisciplinary collaboration in the art world and academia. Tufts University, with its thriving science and social science centers, and its highly regarded art school are a natural space to explore across disciplinary boundaries. In today’s academic climate, it might seem like art and science thrive in entirely different realms. There is creativity in science and calculation in art, but those attributes appear rather foreign for the received stereotypes of each field. However, art and science are deeply intertwined; they both describe and depict the unknown, what is otherwise unseeable. Before the advent of photography, the ability to accurately depict things through representational art was tied to our ability to understand the world through science, and historically art and science were disciplines that built knowledge together. Advances in mechanical imaging such as photography and film meant we no longer needed the hand or the eye of the artist to represent the world. Surprisingly, after this advent, art continued to be vital to society, it was able to give voice to personal experiences, communicate political and ethical ideals, and create new visual forms. There is a new understanding that interaction between art and science leads to surprising breakthroughs and there are movements to bridge the space once again between disciplines. Scientists are newly recognizing the ability of art to communicate complex ideas, and the need for science to engage with imagination, subjectivity, and ethics. Artists are realizing that science provides vivid and exciting subject matter for artwork, and both fields are recognizing the need to engage the public over urgent issues like climate change and human and planetary health. This blending of disciplines to create new knowledge is what led us to Bright Ecologies and the NeuroArt Lab at Tufts University.

We set out to quantify the psychological impact of public art on both the artist and viewer. By pulling student research members from Tufts University’s Psychology, Computer Science, Engineering, and Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning departments, along with a team of student artist assistants from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, we developed a project that would help us define the human experience with art.

The relationship between a work of art and those who create and shape the work is special. The experience of working on a piece over a sustained period of time, connecting with it and watching it take shape, is fundamentally different from an outside observer with fresh eyes. Thus, it was important to us to work with the student artist assistants who helped develop the work separately from the students who developed and participated in the research.

The concept driving the artwork by our team at the SMFA focused on growth – in more ways than one. The initial public artwork placed on the Tufts University campus was a simple shape, darkly colored and unassuming. Over the course of a few months, the artists developed the artwork, creating a piece that dynamically evolved in front of the public’s eyes, creating complexity that the artists hoped would engage the viewers by adding mirrors, and most important, living plants. This not only added another element of intrigue for passing people, but the selection, upkeep and care of the plants allowed the artists tending to it to develop a deeper connection with the piece. Plants were selected for medicinal or other positive traits, and pairings of mutually beneficial species were planted together to create a healthier group of plants. Plants are known to brighten up a space, and tending to them can have benefits for emotional wellbeing.

Our artists performed such tasks as designing, building, painting, installing plants, and transporting the artwork to the outdoor site. In addition, some participants were responsible for planting, weeding, watering, and overall maintenance and surveillance of the artwork and plants throughout the study. One of the student assistants who was tasked with much of the upkeep, second-year student Fiona Yang, discovered that the plants not only liked to be talked to, but also tickled. She was particularly delighted when a self-seeded maple sapling sprung up surprisingly, and her diligent care kept the plants alive throughout the run of the installation.

In an effort to understand the bond forged by the artists and how the experience of working on the art may affect them in unrelated parts of their lives, we developed a survey administered to the artist team before and after the artwork’s creation. The questions probed the artists’ opinions, tendency towards helping others, and wellbeing.

Our results were mixed in this regard. For each scale, about half of the participants’ scores improved from the first test to the second, and the other half showed decreased or constant scores. This could be due to the timing, since the first test was given at the beginning of the semester and the second test was at the end, when everyone is significantly more stressed and worn out. Or, perhaps, the experience of working with the art improved the artists lives in ways that weren’t targeted by the surveys. Like the sidewalk tracking devices, the results were inconclusive.

Now we’ve covered the art side of public art – what about the public?

Attempting to examine the public’s point of view led us down two different paths. As mentioned above, while the art was installed on the lawn of the Urban and Environmental Planning building, and under occasional development by the artists, we placed a surveillance camera on a nearby building to see how the general population interacted with the art. While most people passed by unruffled, likely students on a mission to get to class on time or people unsure if they were allowed to loiter on the lawn, we did see some more activity once we moved the artwork closer to the sidewalk.

However, footage only tells the physical side of the story when it comes to the impressions the artwork made on these people. The human brain is astonishingly quick to judge – you can form opinions on things that only catch your attention for a moment. These flash experiences might not be visually present in your gait or facial expression, but you might still hold it with you throughout the day, even subconsciously.

Bright Ecologies installed in the lobby of the Tisch Library on the campus of Tufts University in 2022. Photo by Jared Charney.

In that regard, we switched up our approach. We moved the artwork to the front lobby of the campus library, where it was directly in the path of a large portion of the surrounding population. We recruited participants for quick interviews after showing them the artwork and encouraging them to connect with it however they liked – poking it, stroking the plants, feeling the dirt, reading the sign, etc. During the interviews, we presented a series of photos taken along the path the artwork was stationed on while it was outside. We used eye tracking technology to test whether participants’ eyes were drawn to the artwork while they were ‘walking’ down the path.

We also administered surveys to the people we interviewed. From all this, we gathered information about how the participants perceived the artwork’s attributes, how well-versed they were in art, their wellbeing, and their attitudes towards helping others. We were able to integrate the eye tracking results to understand how someone whose survey indicated that the artwork had less of an impact on them perhaps were generally uninterested in art or didn’t look at the piece very much.

As with some other aspects of this experiment, the eye tracking results didn’t give us much information, there appeared to be a glitch in the software. During the final analysis of the data, all the eye tracking results skewed to the lower-left hand corner of the image, leaving the scientists to recognize the data wasn’t valid, and they were unable to draw any conclusions. The interviews gave more information, a large proportion of the interviewees had positive reactions to the artwork and to art in general, leading us to believe that the artwork being in the library was an overall positive for students, and that it enhanced the experience of being in that particular place. Throughout the process, the scientists and artists found no easy answers and quick solutions were elusive. However, important knowledge was developed, such as the artists needing to be more sensitive to the overall context of the experiment, and the scientists perhaps needing to ask a different set of questions with a wider set of tools.

The next step, were the project to have been continued, would have been to work with engineers to design biometric trackers to see if the positive or negative reactions to the artwork coincided with changes in heartrate or respiration. As it was, blending multiple approaches allowed us to understand more aspects of the experience of art. It’s not as simple as a positive or negative aesthetic judgement: body language, eye movement, and seemingly unrelated factors like mindfulness or art familiarity can play a huge role in how we perceive art. Knowing these things can help develop art that will reach broader audiences and appeal to the diverse tastes and habits of the general public.

There is a long history of urban planners, architects, and public artists creating environments that aren’t as sensitive as they could be to the situated bodily experience of people who encounter their work. It’s important for public art pieces to be well-suited to the communities they’re placed in. Art that actively engages with the people, represents something meaningful, and provides a place to learn and grow can have amazing benefits for a community’s sense of belongingness and individual wellbeing. It’s not always easy to figure out what will connect the most with a region – but we don’t need to make shots in the dark. We can use psychology and computer science to advance our understanding of art to work collaboratively with an artist’s vision towards what will make the greatest and longest lasting positive impact on the people that view it. Like much experimental science and artwork, not every aspect of the project was a success. But in line with experimental processes, we learned a lot by testing our hypotheses about how to shape future projects and look forward to continuing to work together in the future as Tufts faculty and students continue to bridge art and science. WM